MahaRERA Flags 1,824 Housing Projects As ‘Expired’
As many as 1,824 housing projects in the state have been declared as “expired” for overshooting completion deadlines set by the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA). The projects would now need consent from 51% buyers for securing extension of the respective completion dates. There are 103 such projects that exceeded the deadline in 2017, 541 in the following year and 1,180 in 2019. Many of the projects had failed to complete even after extension of one year as per Section 6 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act. All these projects would now require consent of 51% buyers under Section 7(3) of the Act. According to the Act, the developers of these projects are prohibited from selling, advertising or marketing them before seeking the extension. Of the 1,824 projects listed as expired by MahaRERA, applications for extension of 350 projects have been submitted. “These applications are under scrutiny.” MahaRERA had given an extension to the deadlines up to September for the projects that were supposed to be completed in March. “The rest of the projects had deadlines before the pandemic year of 2020,” a MahaRERA official said. Most of the projects are based in Pune, Mumbai, Thane and Raigad. Another 1,500 projects might be under the scanner as their deadline was over in March 2021. The developers of these projects can now avail of extension of a period of one year under Section 6 of RERA. Developers felt that the authorities should take a “considerate approach” as the market had been down and there were difficulties in procuring documents within the deadline. They said many projects are shown ‘incomplete’ because of technical reasons. The authorities should evaluate this.